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For centuries the Order of the Star Knights have strived to preserve peace, order and justice in the galaxy. When members have fallen in the line of duty, Mentor has always been able to find new recruits to refill the ranks.

During the Incursion, the Order suffered the most significant amount of losses in its history, with nearly five hundred Star Knights perishing at the Battle of Lor-Van alone, sacrificing themselves to delay the Communion’s world killer in order for more Lor to be evacuated from the doomed world.

As a result, following the end of the Incursion, the Order found itself greatly undermanned and efforts to recruit new Star Knights were stepped up. Even now the Order is not yet back to full strength and is always looking for worthy recruits.

So, this is not a normal recruitment thread. Awhile ago Gizmo and I tried to see if there might be more interest in space based characters. The Star Knights represent an option closely tied to the setting. As it happens, I have a storyline in mind that is ideal for a group of Star Knight PCs. This would be in addition to opportunities for space adventures alongside other space characters (the Eclipse Crew; the Void Runners and the Praetorians).

So, was wanting to see if there were any players (new or old) that had a character slot free and might be interested in making a Star Knight. (Ari has already expressed interest in the idea).

One problem that I know might be of concern to some is that the Star Knight template in the sourcebook is rather expensive. TrollThumper (the only player with a PC Star Knight currently) worked up an alternative version of the template that is much more affordable. I have made an updated version of that that is down below (TT’s has not accounted for some house rules that came after he created Cavalier). At only 68 PP for the armor, there is still quite a bit of points left for other things.

One thought I had was the new PC Star Knights could start out as trainees (Star Squires as Ari called them) and be PL 9/150 PP. If enough people were interested we could consider that route.

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To continue this, and expand, one of the deals with the Star Knights is that, in general, it's like playing less mechanically-differentiated Praetorians. They're generally associated with the Republic/Coalition, have a history rooted in the ancient past and are quasi-independent except when not.

If you're playing an Earth-based Star Knight, the PC would be flavored differently from the other battlesuit-havers, while here there's not such a clear thematic divide.

So what has to set them apart is some goal/problem/other thing that the Praetorians aren't attached to.

And that's where the Light of Truth, the Grue Unity and Blackstar's Blackguard comes in. I feel like Star Knight threads should mostly be about focusing on those three overarching enemies, since, after all, they're Knights and going on quests to defeat evil monsters and kings is part and parcel of the gig. The Light of Truth fits as the kind of order at the cost of freedom the Star Knights are explicitly opposed to. The Grue Unity are the unity at the cost of individuality that the Star Knight experiment was invented to counter. The Blackguard are evil opposites, power at the cost of morality that stands to plunge the local systems even further into darkness.

To make them mechanically a little different, what if the Star Squires are only granted part of a Star Knight's armor? A Shield, a Sword, a Helm, which is the power description for some kind of Protection, some kind of Damage or some kind of Super-Senses, and supplement that with "natural" talents and skills/equipment? Or even, to make it more Nova Corps, take a part of the Star Stone's power into themselves for some one Big Unique Power? With the caveat that some relatively-common circumstance or Descriptor can counter or nullify that Star Heart of theirs.

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Well, those certainly are some ideas for threads that could be used Ari (though I plan to work on something for the Praetorians involving the Grue at some point), but Star Knights likely do much more than just that. They are involved in helping patrol star lanes for pirates, help deal with natural disasters (even ones on a planetary/system scale). So, there can be a variety of threads in addition to the storyline I wanted to work on.

As for breaking up the armor to a Star Squire, only issue I see is that likely removes the flight/interstellar travel capabilities and life support, which makes them harder to use in concert with full Star Knights. Likely just better to scale down the armor slightly for a lower PL (there likely can be some modifying of things anyway, like if someone has a Star Knight with a higher Con, the ranks of Protection would need to drop some0.

Anyway, unless there is some more interest soon, it might just be you and I to start.